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Fire Burning in Snow. CD recording: Ex Cathedra Consort and Baroque Ensemble, cond. Jeffrey Skidmore

This is the third CD in a series of recordings by Skidmore of music from Baroque Latin America, widely acknowledged in their critical reception as revelatory in bringing to public knowledge and appreciation music hitherto virtually unknown. (Volumes 1 and 2 of the series were submitted to RAE 2008.) The present CD focuses mainly on previously unrecorded music, both liturgical and secular, by Juan de Arujo (1648–1712), organist at the cathedral of La Plata, now Sucre, judicial capital of Bolivia. Fundamental primary research by Skidmore on manuscript and printed sources, including work in the Bolivian National Library, Sucre, was required to produce the performing materials for the recording, as well as detailed historical and archival research on period instrumentation and performance practices for this exciting and musically diverse repertory. As well as the works of Arujo, the CD contains a newly available version of _¡Salga el torillo hosquillo!_ by Diego José de Salazar, an evocation of a bullfight in which the Matador is transformed into the Virgin Mary, dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. A further important contribution to the album is the first complete recording of the anonymous _Hanacpachap cussicuinin_, a Christian polyphonic hymn in adoration of the Virgin Mary written entirely in Quechua, the language of the Incas; Skidmore’s research for this work therefore involved the acquisition of specialist linguistic skills through consultation with experts in the field. The recording, as with its two predecessors, is an invaluable musical, historical and research resource for musicians and scholars of early modern Latin American culture. Further material on the research background, together with all texts and translations, can be found in Skidmore’s liner notes to the CD.

The CD was BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Month, and Classic FM Magazine Opera & Vocal Disc of the Month:

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